borderlandsfandomcom-20200223-history
Spiderant
Spiderants are viciously territorial creatures that bear a passing resemblance to insects. The most striking features of these creatures are their elongated heads, four limbs, and abdomens. Their heads are thickly armored as are their strong, dangerously sharp forelimbs. The abdomen, however, is unarmored and is the creature's weakest point. Overview Spiderants are known to burrow underground and tend to frequent areas with relatively flat, open ground. Spiderants are one of the few native species encountered on Pandora that do not emerge from a hardened burrow with an obvious exit. There are several different varieties of Spiderants, with varying abilities and attack patterns. All Spiderants employ some form of sweeping slash attack when another being gets too close. Some leap at their foes, trying to impale them upon their diamond-hard forelimbs. Some also use a projectile attack, ejecting semi-transparent, egg-like sacks from the ends of their abdomen at their targets. These projectiles range from small, grenade-like projectiles, to large mine-like projectiles that detonate over a large area. Badass Spiderants, like all badass creatures, can have an elemental property, and can launch powerful elemental projectiles. General Strategy All Spiderants are covered with an armored carapace, which protects their rounded head, and sharp-tipped lower legs. Shots to either of the mentioned areas will tend to do about 0.1-0.2 times baseline damage while shots to the upper limbs will do 0.75 times. Shots to the actual body itself, a small sliver of exposed flesh between the head and abdomen, will do regular damage. Dealing enough damage in a short time to a Spiderant's head (especially the upper fringe) will disorient them for a moment, making them turn about and stagger for a second or two, exposing their vulnerable posterior. The abdomen, when accessible, provides a sizable critical hit target that is both easy to strike and disastrous to the Spiderant when struck. Shotguns work well against Spiderants, not only because they can easily disorient, but also because follow-up blasts to the abdomen can usually take down even the toughest specimen. "Spiked" varieties of Shotgun can also be used to quickly deliver debilitating melee attacks which can themselves disorient or kill a Spiderant if the abdomen takes several blows. Combat rifles are also effective weapons as the heavy slugs can disorient on head strikes, and then slam the abdomen. Revolvers are passable weapons to use against Spiderants; with their extreme damage-per-bullet rating, they have a better-than-normal chance of disorientation. However, revolvers' limited magazines, rates of fire, and poor recoil handling can pose a problem. Sniper rifles can do extreme amounts of damage to this less-than-robust enemy, but only with abdominal hits from a distance. Like scythids, Spiderants resist elemental attacks, and take reduced damage from weapons like rocket launchers or grenades, although rocket launchers, thanks to their high damage-per-shot, can easily disorient them. Spiderants prefer to run directly up and swat their enemies with one of their forelimbs. A viable tactic to avoid taking excessive damage is to walk backwards, firing until the enemy is just about to attack, then cease firing and sprint to the left or right. This allows players to circle quickly around the Spiderants and deal massive damage to their abdomens. Players in a solo situation against the larger types of Spiderant (badass and similar) may find it incredibly difficult to exploit the critical point on their abdomens for two reasons. Firstly, the Spiderant itself will not attempt to attack anything other than the player, so it is impossible to flank them while another person takes their attention. Secondly, they are much more difficult to disorient than their smaller counterparts or even the optional bosses. A solution is to focus the targeting element on the upper fringe of the armored head while backpedaling. Due to a collision detection quirk involving their walk animation, several of these shots will register as abdomen hits, dealing critical damage from the front even though the abdomen itself is not truly exposed. Despite being armored, Spiderants are not appreciably affected by corrosive effects as would be expected from an armored enemy; their frontal armor remains largely intact and (as previously stated) they suffer only minuscule damage over time. Common Types ''Borderlands'' Spiderants *Spiderantling *Spiderant Worker *Spiderant Gyro *Spiderant Soldier *Spiderant Queen *Spiderant King *Spiderant-Trap *Badass Spiderant Corrupter *Badass Spiderant Burner *Badass Spiderant Zapper ''Borderlands 2'' Spiderants For the most part, the same variations of Spiderants are encountered in Borderlands 2, with their name variations in playthroughs over normal being similar. *Spiderling *Spiderant Worker *Spiderant Soldier *Spiderant Warrior *Spiderant Sentinel *Poisonous Spiderant *Fire Spiderant *Slagged Spiderant *Spiderant Knight *King Spiderant *Queen Spiderant *Chubby Spiderant Spiderant Bosses ''Borderlands'' *Helob *King Aracobb *Queen Tarantella *Widowmaker ''Borderlands 2'' *The Black Queen *Dark Web *Scorch *Spycho *Sully the Blacksmith Notes *It is possible to kill Spiderants using an Outrunner with a missile launcher turret before they surface by pressing the lock on button in the vicinity of burrowed Spiderants. The missile launcher will immediately lock on to the nearest Spiderant and the splash damage from the missiles will hurt and kill the Spiderants without them surfacing. This is also possible with other area-of-effect weapons (most notably rocket launchers), but the locations of the Spiderants will have to be guessed. Using the machine gun turret for this merely makes the targeted and all adjacent Spiderants surface. *Stun effects can be stacked. This will allow for a prolonged shooting session at the vulnerable parts of the creature. *Explosive weapons will stun a Spiderant almost twice as often as other guns. *When firing from the front, shots bound for the top of a Spiderant's head will sometimes reach the abdomen for a critical hit. *The corrosive element seems to have more effect than the other elements, although this could be just due to the 'splash' nature of corrosive weapons. *Multiple stacked daze effects can create the humorous situation of a gyro rolling at little more than walking speed. *Elemental damage over time will randomly disorient all varieties of Spiderant. A player with a good elemental (preferably corrosive, due to its long damage-over-time duration) weapon can keep a spiderant completely defenseless as they stagger and are open to abdomen attacks. *The Bloodwing can attack burrowed Spiderants. If sufficiently upgraded, it could devastate a group of burrowed Spiderants before they could surface and attack. *If a Fire Spiderant is thoughtlocked just before it burrows itself into the ground, the glob will be visible above the ground till the thoughtlock period is over. fr:Hyménoptère ru:Муравей-Паук Category:Creatures Category:Enemies